February 24 postgame quotes: Quick, Kopitar, Williams

Jonathan Quick on at what point the winning streak becomes impressive to the team:
It’s not about the streak. It’s trying to get into the playoffs. We’ve kind of put ourselves in a position where we have to string together wins like that. If you look at the standings, I think we’re only in a playoff spot by a point or two. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, still a lot of hockey to play. We’ll just focus on the next game.

Quick, on whether there was a game plan to “neutralize” Detroit’s power play:
There’s a plan every night. We know what we have to take away and the routes we have to take up ice, their scoring threats, what they like to do. There’s a plan every game.

Quick, on the team’s defensive effort apart from the penalty kill:
I think penalty kill kind of set the tone. I think we killed one early, two in the first, and I think we just kind of played a very similar way five-on-five as we did four-on-five. I think (the way) we started off the first half of the first period was great, the way we kind of played that possession game down in their end, so they didn’t have much zone time in the first period until maybe a little bit at the end of the first. I think it just kind of stems from the PK. Guys were great.

Anze Kopitar, on the penalty kill:
I thought our power play was pretty good, too. We got the first goal and then the five-on-three and then the five-on-four right after that I thought was pretty good. We just didn’t connect on it.

Kopitar, on checking and defensive zone coverage during five-on-five play:
It was just taking care of the puck. I think at this time of the year you’re playing desperate teams, and you just want to make sure you don’t make it easy on them with our mistakes and them getting chances off our mistakes. Just taking care of the puck and not turning the puck over.

Kopitar, on what has “gelled” during the winning streak:
You win one, you win two, you feel a little bit more confident again. We knew just because we were in the position that we were before, a streak like this would pull us out of that hole. Now we broke even, but now we’ve got to keep going like this.

Kopitar, on how tough the Kings are to play against when their PK is “clicking”:
Very tough. First and foremost, we don’t want to take too many penalties, but sometimes that’s what’s going to happen. We need our PK to be on like it was tonight.

Justin Williams, on the team’s rise in the standings:
Well, yeah, we’re climbing. We’re certainly not where we want to be yet, but we’re in the top eight, and that’s a start, and we’re going to keep climbing. The thing is when things are going well, you want to keep them going well. You want to keep harder to keep them going well, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do in practice and for the next game.

Williams, on how this year’s eight-game winning streak compares to last year’s:
It’s tough to compare teams. Every year is different, every situation’s different. You go through ups and downs in seasons that are never really the same, but I look around, and I have faith in everybody in this team, and there are a lot of familiar faces, and when push comes to shove, I know the guy sitting next to me is going to get it done.

Williams, on climbing out of a hole from earlier in the year:
Yeah, we were in a hole, but listen, there’s 20 games left and we’ve got to keep trending in the right direction because we know what can happen quickly, and we’ve shown that anyone can get hot, and we just need to do what we’re doing.

Williams, on if he knew immediately that he scored:
I knew it hit me, yeah. So, yeah. [Reporter: Do you get tired of celebrating your 100th goal as a King? It had been seven games since you scored.] Is that what it was? Obviously I’m happy to help the team, happy to get some power play opportunities. That’s what you’re supposed to do on the power play – score a big goal.